h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was headed in the right direction with that previous post. Maybe I should consider a legal career?

"It's important to note that with everything you contribute to h2g2, you still own the copyright over it. This means you are perfectly free to take what you have written and re-publish it somewhere else.

All you do in contributing to h2g2 is to grant us is permission to publish. In other words, anything you create on h2g2 is done under the condition that you grant us non-exclusive copyright to distribute and edit the material in any way that we want, and in any media. As we would like to be able to distribute the Guide in various formats in the coming years, we need to be sure that we have the right to publish everything that's on h2g2." - From the House Rules page.

Hello everyone! Just passing through... Could anyone tell me where the Ministry for Sitting on Our Backsides and Doing Sod-all has gone?

Oh, it's still here, it's just moved.

Walk straight on till you get to where they're building the new sports centre... then take a left and you'll see the place where they're thinking of building that drive-in bank. Turn into the street that has the site for the possible new cinema... you can't miss it.

In other words, no clue.

Nonnie, how do you think about this all now? The way the colonel decribes it, it's not that bad.

WHat's bugging me so far is the mothering attitude of things like the yikes button and the censorship possibility.

Thanks Prez. I suppose if anyone gets around to re-openning it, I'll find it. And yes the Yikes looks VERY unfriendly...

I still don't like it.

The wording is too far-reaching. "We can do anything we want with it"... Yes, we can take our stuff and publish it elsewhere -- and that's only because they'd have a really hard time telling us we couldn't... but to even 'excerpt' anything else we have to have 'explicit written permission from BBC'? What this effectively means is that if I decide to take a sentence or two from your page and even copy it into my post, I could be held liable. Granted, I don't think they'd push it to that extent, and there is fair use, but the way it's worded doesn't take that into consideration.

*sigh*

I doubt it makes any sense to anyone.

And yeah, the censorship is a big thing. I've left many places due to that.. I hope I can still converse here, as I'd hate to have to lose a whole lot of friends in one go.

Well i really don't care about the whole thing.
I'm sorry for you Nonnie, but I've thought about it a little and decided that, with all due respect, people should stop whining.

You see, here is a site that is teaching me so much about the Net and communities, and gives the the opportunity to do whatever I like whenever I like with whomever I like, and there is a lot of cash needed, and I know that I'm not going to procure that myself. For the sake of the ease with which i have access to the fun I have here, I can take the small chafing stuff like moderation and the yikes button. That's as far as cnversation goes.

The entries:
You write for the Guide. Not for yourself. You know that. You knew that all along.

And that's how I think. DOesn't mean I'll stop seeing what can be done about the small chafing stuff, but I won't let my fun be spoilt by it.

I don't see how the current copyright is any different from the old one, except with the addition of sublicensing, which is probably more something that h2g2 just forgot to mention before.

Say that you want to quote an entry of mine on h2g2. Who would stop you? You are reproducing h2g2 content... on h2g2. So if someone wants to read it, they still have to come here. It's the guide quoting itself.

Now, say that you want to quote an entry of mine someplace *other* than h2g2. Is this completely forbidden? Not really. That's because I hold non-exclusive copyright to my work. I am free to sublicense that copyright to anyone I choose. You don't have to ask the Guide for permission to reproduce my work. You can simply ask me.

So I don't see the copyrights as having changed one bit since the turnover. The only significant change is the implementation of moderations. Rather than get worked up over it now, I will wait to see how it works in practice, and possibly help shape the direction it goes. I'm a rather controversial person, as well as something of a hothead, but I've already seen some of my content restored to me that gives me confidence that my style will still be welcome here (including one forum where I am called a prat, and I respond by calling the person stupid in a very eloquent way). If I begin to feel otherwise, I will pack my bags and go.

But your phrasing indicates you're just as rigourous about this as Nonnie. What do mean, 'pack your bags and go'. This is a virtual place. There are no bags, there is no 'go'. You can always come back, and you know you would come back to check now and again. You could delete your account, yes, but I don't think that's what you meant. Is it?

*sigh* I'm not whining. I'm stating my opinions, and the following quote.

"Other than materials you may author and post, material may not be excerpted or copied for any purpose without the prior express written permission of the BBC."

If the Guide alienated me to the point that I felt like Nonnie does now, I would walk away and never come back. I don't think there is an immediate risk of that, so I'm not worried. But I would "pack" by deleting everything that I have permission to delete, and I would "go" on with my life in places other than H2G2.

That's not to say that I feel that there is any reason for that recourse anytime soon. I've voiced my opinions on the issues that are important to me. Mark has been saying that moderation will not be excessive... I feel reassured by some of my content that has been restored to me. Am I fully confident in the scheme? No. Inappropriate content is something that is subjective and hard to define, and the definitions will vary from moderator to moderator, no matter what sort of training is implemented to assist uniformity. This is probably going to be a debate that will rage on for as long as the beeb and H2G2 continue their association. But as for me, I enjoy being controversial. I also enjoy being provocative, which is banned by the T&C's as they now read. But I believe the spirit of that rule is to prevent people from provoking fistfights, whereas I prefer to provoke thought. I'm sure that I'll be dancing on the razor's edge of the beeb's sensibilities, and that they'll remove my comments now and again. But as long as I can continue to carry on with the sort of conversation that draws me to H2G2, and as long as I feel like they're cutting my material only when I really do cross the line into offensiveness (which I admit to having done on occasion, and will probably continue to do), and that they are doing this on a consistent and fair basis throughout the site, then I will be able to come to an accord with the new guidelines.

So, if the beeb started assassinating everything I post, I would pack and go. If the beeb put a stop to the kind of conversation that made the FFFF such a great place to be, I would pack and go. If the beeb sent naughty-naughty messages to me and killed my postings that were incited by even worse ones which are still allowed to stand, I would pack and go. Is that going to come to pass? I don't think it will, but the potential is there. For right now, I'm putting my faith in the Towers to restrain the beeb. And I believe they will. In the meantime, I'm sure that they'll listen to researcher feedback, as they always have, and that some sort of compromise or workaround will be reached where we can exchange external URL's, the ban on which I consider to be the most detrimental result of the new beeb-Towers partnership.

Ooh... simulpost. Just like in the olden days... ;-) Nonnie: You raise an interesting point. However, rather than engaging in knee-jerk reactions and removing all your stuff, might I invite you to the following conversation, where we can get some clarification? After all, I'd be interested to hear what the Towers has to say on that particular point. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F55683?thread=100271

Opened link in new window.

As for packing up.. That was a mandatory for me. As for leaving... What can I say? I can't... at least not yet. I believe it was this thread in which I said that I don't want to leave a load of friends behind, and that the conversations would still see me popping in. (The fact that I've several times in the past few days been 'most prolific poster' should tell you that! ) ...But the packing was a self-preservation thing... Maybe a paranoid one, but hey.. just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're -not- out to get you.

Maybe that's what I wanted to hear a little more explicit then, Nonnie. There'S more to here than just what you write...

Of course! There's what everyone else writes, too.

Btw: A psuedo-explanation of my most recent absenteeism is available in my journal's last post. A more extended explanation is "RL" which is a misnomer but it's all we have.

It's always good in my view to see someone disappear from the virtual stage, as you have for a while, if RL is the cause of it. It means you have a RL. h2g2 is really nice, sure, but I like RL too. So go, and be occupied. WHat worries me more is the one before the last, saying ---NOTICE---.
I thought we'd agreed you weren't going to pack?

Hmm... I could have sworn I'd said "packing was mandatory" for me, at least.

Hey!
Where you been?
Out and about? on a personal boycott spell?
just incommunicado?

are you sticking around?

Naw.. no boycott... Just haven't had the time, really. Like everyone, I suppose, I rushed back despite other obligations when I heard the news about Douglas.